Avid Technology may not officially participate in this year’s NAB but its presence is felt on the show floor. The company has just released additional information on pricing and availability of the new Mojo DX and Nitris DX hardware as well as Media Composer, Symphony and NewsCutter software.

The news can be summed up as “slashed prices” and “new gear.” The new products are expected to ship by June of 2008.

Avid Xpress Pro has been retired and replaced by Media Composer. This editing software can be used with no special hardware. For added productivity and I/O options Mojo SDI, Mojo DX and Nitris DX are available. Media Composer is available for both Mac and Windows Vista.

Symphony software runs only with Nitris DX hardware. It is available on both Mac and Windows Vista workstations.

NewsCutter can work as software only or with Mojo DX or Nitris DX hardware.

The price points are (USD):

Symphony Nitris DX $35,995

Media Composer Nitris DX $21,995

Media Composer Mojo DX $9,995

Media Composer (software only) $2,495

NewsCutter Nitris DX $24,995

NewsCutter Mojo DX $19,995

NewsCutter (software only) $4,995

8 core workstations are included in some of the above pricing.

Among notable new features are real time performance improvements in both SD and HD, native support for DVCPRO HD, XDCAM HD, AVC-I, XDCAM-EX and HDV. The performance improvements are achieved through intelligent task apportioning between the CPU, graphics card and the dedicated hardware (Mojo DX, Nitris DX).

For more information see this article.